


The Space Between

by carolinecrane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Fandom Stocking 2013, Gen, Post - Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colin and Dennis Creevey grew up braver and stronger than their stature would ever have suggested, and their father wouldn't have traded them for the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isquinnabel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isquinnabel/gifts).



When he was ten years old, Colin came home with a hole in his trousers and a bloodied knee. Dennis trailed behind him, eyes wide and shining and his little cheeks red from the wind, and as soon as they got through the door, he was babbling a story about how Colin had gotten into a row with some bigger kids, and _look, Dad, he’s bleeding and everything!_

When Morris Creevey asked his son what had happened, Colin just said that some of the neighbor boys had been laughing at Dennis for being so small, so Colin had got between them and told those boys that there was nothing wrong with his brother. He'd gotten himself laughed at and pushed down for his efforts, and he'd scraped his knee and torn his best school trousers.

Being hurt hadn’t stopped him standing up to bullies, though, and more than once he’d come home with a cut lip or torn clothing. Colin wasn’t a fighter, but Morris had raised his sons to know right from wrong, and both of them were willing to stand up for what was right, no matter how big their opponent.

Morris and his wife were shocked when they answered the door one evening in July to find a tall, severe-looking woman in a smart tartan dress and a traveling cloak. She had a letter in her hand, and when she explained about Colin and this special school for special people, Morris had found it hard to believe. 

Or perhaps he hadn’t wanted to believe, because that meant Colin would be going away to a world that had nothing to do with him or his family. But Colin was excited, and even Morris had to admit that it made sense that Colin was different. _Magic_ , she’d said, that Professor McGonagall person, as though such a thing existed. But Colin had always been a bit...off, and it explained how he’d always come out of his fights not much worse for the wear, no matter how big or strong the lads who tried to ambush him.

When the second letter arrived for Dennis this time, Morris was almost relieved. It meant both his boys would be going away to school, but at least Colin would be there to look after Dennis. Dennis who was so much smaller even than Colin, but with a heart as big as a lion and too much courage for his own good. Dennis whose eyes went so wide when his letter arrived that Morris was almost sure he’d have tried to stow away to Hogwarts to be with Colin if he hadn’t been invited.

They were safe there, Morris thought. Safe from bigger boys who bullied them just because they were small like their mum. They were among their fellows, and not all the other students were kind to them, certainly, but most of them were. They’d found a place where they both belonged, and Morris was happy for his boys, even if he didn’t have a place in this new world of theirs.

Sometimes it was hard to understand. When Colin came home from his first trip to the wizarding shops secreted away in London with spellbooks and a wand, of all things, Morris wondered if someone was having them on. Colin spent the rest of the summer with his head buried in a book called Hogwarts: A History, glancing up from time to time to prattle on about the castle or the forest or some creature or other. He talked a fair bit about a boy name of Harry Potter, as well, but none of it made much sense to Morris.

Still, Colin was happier than Morris had ever seen him, so he tried his best to follow along with Colin’s stories, and when Colin came home during his first break with pictures of this Harry Potter, Morris marveled at the moving images alongside the rest of his family.

By the time Dennis went off on the train alongside his brother, they’d been around enough magic to be used to it. Still, Morris couldn’t help feeling a bit out of place, standing on the train platform alongside all the other parents, most of them dressed in robes and pushing carts with owl cages and all manner of strange things piled on them. Even though Morris had seen his sons’ cauldrons and spellbooks and their school trunks packed with robes and pointy wizard’s hats, it still felt a bit like he’d wandered into a fancy dress party for which he hadn’t received an invitation.

It always felt like waking from a dream when they went back to their own world, to his milk truck and later the pub for a pint with the blokes in the neighborhood. They didn’t ask after his boys much, but whenever one of them did, Morris only said something vague like, “They’re getting on well.”

He didn’t like to mention sending his boys off to school, because he knew the neighbors wondered how they could afford it on just a milkman’s salary. The one time someone had asked he’d murmured something vague about scholarships, which was true, but he couldn’t explain that his boys had both been born with a talent for magic rather than a talent for maths or footy.

Still, Dennis and Colin were happy, even if it was because of something Morris would never fully understand. They seemed to be getting on well, too, getting good marks in their classes and coming home at the end of each term, breathless with stories of all the things they’d learned. Morris worried a bit when they talked about learning to defend themselves against Dark Arts, about the return of someone Colin would only refer to as ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ and how the Ministry of Magic was trying to cover it up, but he believed Harry.

The real danger only became apparent to him once Muggle-borns were forbidden from attending Hogwarts altogether. When Colin said they were rounding up Muggle-borns and taking them to the Ministry for questioning, Morris knew how serious the situation had become. He remembered the stories of German citizens being rounded up, after all, remembered his parents’ whispered tales about the air raids and all the people who had never gone home again after the war.

So he put in for a transfer and took a job in the north, far away from his old route and everyone who’d known them. He didn’t enroll his boys in the local school district, because how could he explain where they’d been all this time when there weren’t any school records to show for them? So they’d registered as a home school, and Dennis and Colin had stayed in their flat with his wife where they’d be safe.

That was the plan, at least. That was the promise they’d made, not to do magic and not to do anything that would get them noticed by anyone who might come looking for them. Morris couldn’t understand their world, nor the war currently brewing within it, but he could keep his boys safe. That had been his job since they were born, and he wasn’t about to stop now.

He supposed it all would have been all right, if they hadn’t found some way to stay in touch with their old mates. Even after the fact Morris didn’t really understand it -- something about magical coins, they'd said -- but he supposed it didn’t matter. What _did_ matter was that there was a battle at their old school, and his boys had given their mum and him the slip and rushed off to stand up for what they thought was right.

It was no surprise to see Professor McGonagall coming up their walk for the second time, wearing the same smart tartan dress and black traveling cloak. She’d been Head Of House to both his boys, after all, and that made them her responsibility, she’d said.

But they weren’t hers to look after, not really. They were Creeveys before they were wizards, and Creeveys always looked after their own. Colin had looked after his brother right up to the end, Morris was sure of it, and as much as it hurt to lose them, he couldn’t help but be proud of his sons.


End file.
